Under heavy fire from all sides, Gay and Magill (who has since resigned) backtracked on that admission, though it was an accurate expression of the ideal toward which these schools claim to strive. But the presidents’ position is no principled stand; it’s a dodge. If they were really interested in taking a Constitution-based approach to advancing speech in a content-neutral way, they could enforce constitutionally permissible limitations on speech known as “time, place, and manner” restrictions. In short: they could take a stand, not against disruptive speech but disruptive action.

Many anti-Israel agitators have violated with impunity rules regulating the times, places, and manners of expression. At Penn, for instance, students vandalized university buildings with anti-Israel messages and occupied them for hours. At Harvard, hordes invaded classes with bullhorn-amplified chants of “globalize the Intifada!” At MIT, students chanted “free, free Palestine!” in a math class. Dozens of similar incidents have piled up across the country, with students emboldened to keep exceeding the bounds of acceptable expression because they know that university leadership won’t stop them.

If they really wanted to, campus presidents could put a swift end to such intimidation with strict enforcement of content-neutral rules that anti-Israel students violate regularly. They could punish the individuals responsible for making campus a hostile place for Jews without discriminating based on the content of speech. Yet, they haven’t.

[When they start expelling students that engage in shutdown activism and bullying on campus against ideological and/or ethnic opponents, then we can take these universities at their word about free speech. That would actually set up disincentives that could curtail the enthusiasm for such tactics later. But that’s not what the Poison Ivies do; they prosecute people over pronoun usage and ‘misgendering’ while allowing their ideological allies to intimidate and terrorize disfavored groups and viewpoints. That’s why their testimony was such a disaster; the presidents tried to hide behind a free-speech concept they’ve tried to kill for others. — Ed]